An unidentified airborne object, likely a drone, probably flew into Polish territory in the morning of Aug. 26 amid a mass Russian attack across Ukraine, Polish military officials said.
Russia used at least 100 missiles and 100 drones in a wide-scale attack across the country, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. At least five people have been killed and eight were injured as of the time of this publication.
The Polish Operational Command said earlier in the day that Polish and other allied jets were active in the southeastern part of the country amid the Russian attack on Ukraine.
Jacek Goryszewski, a spokesperson for Poland's Operational Command, told Reuters that "most likely (the object) was a drone, and we assume so because the trajectory of the flight and the speed indicate that it was definitely not a missile."
Major General Maciej Klisz, the Operational Commander of the Polish Armed Forces, said at a briefing that the object probably crossed the border at 6:43 a.m. Polish time from the direction of the Ukrainian city of Chervonohrad, Lviv Oblast.
"The object disappeared after (traveling) approximately 25 km (15 miles) into Polish territory," Klisz said.
"The object was not confirmed by either allied or Polish aircraft," the major general added.
According to spokesperson Goryszewski, "the object is being searched for by 100 soldiers on the ground and one helicopter." Due to weather conditions, the origin of the object was not possible.
Klisz said that the search was being conducted near the Polish town of Tyszowce, located some 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
It is not the first time there has been spillover from the full-scale war in Ukraine onto Polish territory.
In December 2023, a Russian missile entered Polish airspace, putting the country's defenses on high alert. In another incident in November 2022, a missile flew onto Polish territory during a Russian mass attack, killing two civilians. Polish investigators later concluded that it was a stray Ukrainian anti-air projectile launched to intercept the Russian attack.
Sonya Bandouil
(Updated: )
